VLADIMIR DOBRYNIN BECAME THE HEAD OF YOTA, Maria Andreeva

Vladimir Dobrynin was appointed as general director of mobile communication operator Yota (OOO Skartel company). Formerly, he had the post of operational director of the company. He came to replace Konstantin Likhodedov who had been the head of Yota for slightly more than a year and quit this post in October of 2016. Vladimir Dobrynin has been working for Yota since 2010 and unlike two previous heads of the operator does not combine the post of general director of Yota with position in the management of MegaFon, parent company of operator Yota. It was PR director of the operator Olga Alexeeva who reported to correspondent of ComNews that personnel reshuffles happened in Yota. Alexeeva explained that Dobrynin already came to office of general director and his former position of operational director of the company was abolished. Alexeeva reported to ComNews, "Vladimir Dobrynin will be responsible both for operational management and for strategic planning. His duties will include development of a strategy, optimization of business processes, organization of work and efficient interaction of divisions of the company, conduction of operational financial and economic analysis etc." We need to say that in less than two years Dobrynin is already the third director of Yota. In spring of 2015, Anatoly Smorgonsky quit the company (see report of ComNews from May 15 of 2015). He was replaced with Mikhail Dubin who combined the post of general director of Yota with the post of deputy general director of MegaFon for strategic development. However, already at the end of summer (in August of 2015) Mikhail Dubin quit MegaFon and Konstantin Likhodedov took his place on both posts (name of the post in MegaFon was changed for director for development of business on the mass market) (see report of ComNews from August 10 of 2015). Konstantin Likhodedov had the post of general director of Yota for slightly more than a year. In October of 2016, he quit MegaFon, correspondingly, leaving the posts of director of MegaFon for development of business on the mass market and general director of Yota (see report of ComNews from October 14 of 2016). Vladimir Dobrynin has worked for Yota since 2010 and unlike the two previous heads of the operator he does not combine the post of general director of Yota with position in the management of MegaFon. Answering the question of ComNews if the new appointment would influence strategy of the company, representatives of Yota said that the strategy would not change. Georgy Vashchenko, director of the department of operations on the Russian stock market of investment company Freedom Finance, presumes that the strategy is determined by the main shareholder anyway that influences the decisions through the meeting and members of the Board of Directors. According to him, general director does day-to-day management acting in the framework of strategic goals and tasks et for him. The analyst says, "That is why I believe that this will not have a direct effect on the strategy but efficiency may grow. New managers often try to demonstrate results of their work on growth of profit, cutting of costs etc in the first months." In a conversation with correspondent of ComNews analyst of Finam group Timur Nigmatullin has said that in general Yota is a fairly big niche operator (according to estimates, against the background of broadening of geography of spreading distribution of SIM cards and increase of expenses on marketing, Yota has more than 2 million active subscribers now) and for MegaFon formation of the team of its top management is economically expedient without combination of posts. The expert presumes that most likely strategy of the company will not change significantly. Nigmatullin concluded, "Subsidiary operator is interesting for MegaFon, first of all, from the standpoint of market segmentation against the background of growth of competition. I expect continuation of expansion in the regions through increase of the quantity of points of sale."

File of ComNews Vladimir Dobrynin was born in 1974. In 1997, he graduated from the mechanical department of the Moscow state technical university of civil aviation and in 2011 he obtained MBA degree in Stockholm School of Economics. In the last 15 years, he worked for such companies as VimpelCom (Beeline brand), Russian Standard bank, MegaFon, Skartel (operator of Yota). In 2000, he started working for Sonic Duo (later MegaFon) on the post of the leading specialist for communications. In 2001, he moved to VimpelCom to the post of director for advertising. Since 2005 until 2007, he was business consultant in the field of branding and strategy and completed more than 30 successful projects. In 2008, he returned to VimpelCom to the post of chief marketing specialist. In 2010, he came to Yota in capacity of director for marketing and later he took position of director for product. He quit the company in capacity of director for development of business in 2013 and moved to MegaFon for position of director for management of client experience. Since July of 2015, he had the post of operational director of Yota.